Christmas Pilgrimage: Luke 2:1-20 - Christmas Eve

For as much as today’s Church loves and anticipates Christmas, there have been powerful movements within Christianity to ban its celebration.

The first of these began in the sixteenth century following the European Reformation, when many Protestant churches were looking to distance themselves from all things associated with Roman Catholicism. 

Back in the fourth century, after the Roman Empire made Christianity its official religion, the emperor took the winter solstice festival to the pagan God Saturnalia and replaced it with the celebration of Jesus’s birth. Incidentally, all the things we associate with Christmas, including wreaths, feasting, candles, and gift-giving, carried directly over from this pagan feast. Hence, many Christians have denounced Christmas because of its association with paganism, and for the fact that the Bible never indicates the date of Jesus’s birth or calls for its celebration. 

Natività by robra photograph on flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In colonial times, Puritans banned Christmas not only for its pagan associations, but also to discourage drunkenness and revelry, going so far as to mandate that schools and business must remain open on December 25, and anyone caught celebrating Christmas would be subject to fines.

It really wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that our modern conception of Christmas came into being, with Santa Claus, Rudolph, songs about sleigh rides and jingle bells, and gifts galore. It’s almost as if paganism is trying to take Christmas back, replacing Christ with consumerism. 

And yet, even since the beginnings of the Church, Christians have been drawn to Bethlehem and the manger, and the awesome mystery of God taking on human flesh in a tiny baby. 

Everything I have shared with you thus far came from the final chapter of our Bible Study book, Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus: An Advent to Christmas Pilgrimage. A recurring theme of the book is the power of what the authors describe as “thin places” where the space between heaven and earth practically vanishes. Many of these thin places are in the Holy Land, where millions of pilgrims travel to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and the heroes of the faith. But a thin place can also be your church, where you are baptized, taught the Word of God, partake of the Lord’s Supper, and belong to the family of God. 

The way I see it, Christmas is a thin time which puts us into a state of mind and a state of heart that draws us closer to Jesus. But getting there is a pilgrimage. While it doesn’t require scrounging up the time and the money to travel halfway around the world, it does demand focus and discipline. 

Advent began as a season of fasting, but we have turned it into the most rushed and chaotic time of the year. Most of us are being pulled in every direction with shopping, school music concerts, end-of-the-year deadlines at work, final exams at school, decorating our homes, sending cards, waiting in long lines at the store, stuck in traffic jams. On top of that comes all the things we do as a church to celebrate Christmas. In many ways, making it to Christmas and making it to the manger are two different things! In fact, you can skip the manger and still have a jolly good time.

But there’s something else that makes the pilgrimage to the manger a difficult one: the darkness. If you hurt, you hurt worse at Christmas. This time of year as a way of reactivating grief. You feel shame if you can’t afford fancy gifts or prepare a big dinner. 

When you factor in all the stress, the exhaustion, and the pain this season brings, you may feel tempted to skip Christmas altogether, and not just the silly stuff, but the important stuff, too. 

But you can take heart in the fact that nobody involved in the Nativity Story was having a jolly good time. Mary and Joseph were making a 90-mile trip on foot through hazardous wildernesses full of steep cliffs, wild beasts, and bandits. For the shepherds, it was one more miserable night of a life lived outdoors, just like the sheep they tended. Jesus is born among animals, wrapped in rags, and laid atop hay in a feeding trough. This means that if you’re struggling this Christmas, you’re closer to the manger than you’d think.

You don’t need fancy presents, trees, Hallmark movies, or even Santa Claus to make it to the manger. All you need is the faith to join the shepherds in answering the angels’ call to go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place. There, you will find Jesus, the fullness of God in fragile flesh, born into poverty, born into a harsh and dangerous world, born into the perils and pains of human existence. There, you will find the Jesus who will face your fears with you, who will take on your sin and mortality onto his body on the cross and rise again for you. There, you are invited to hold your newborn savior in the arms of your faith and make a home for him in your heart. 

Even though many have tried to ban Christmas; as greed tries to corrupt Christmas, as fear tries to spoil Christmas, the Spirit keeps us coming back. In this harsh and dying world, we need Christ to be born in us. This is a pilgrimage we all must undertake. And because there are many not making this pilgrimage with us, your next pilgrimage is to go out into the world and bring Christ to them.  Faith, hope, and love make every day Christmas. Jesus speaks through our ministry, he acts through our service, he brings life to our darkness, healing to our brokenness, hope to our despair, and resurrection to our mortality.

Luke 2:1-20 (NRSV)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴ Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵ He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.

⁸ Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹ to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, ¹⁹ and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.